State Rep. Heflin petitions for ballot recount

Campaign also alleges fraud, has until Wednesday to contest election

Published 6:30 am, Tuesday, November 23, 2004

State Rep. Talmadge Heflin is seeking a manual recount of all ballots cast earlier this month in his unsuccessful bid for a 12th term in the Legislature, his lawyer said Monday.

The lawyer, Andy Taylor, also said the campaign has uncovered "deeply disturbing evidence of voter fraud and election irregularities" and that the problems may have contributed to Heflin's 32-vote loss to Democratic businessman Hubert Vo earlier this month.

"Illegal votes were counted, and legal votes were rejected," Taylor said Monday.

Several election experts said Monday that Taylor's allegations of voter fraud would have no effect on a recount because recounts are confined solely to counting ballots — not determining whether those ballots should have been accepted or rejected.

But Taylor's allegations could provide a basis for contesting the election before the state House of Representatives. Heflin and his supporters have until the end of Wednesday to decide whether to file such a contest.

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Contesting the election in the state House would force lawmakers either to seat Vo or overturn the election and require a new vote. Although there have been several requests for election contests in the Texas House in recent years, most were withdrawn and none has reversed an election result.

The Heflin campaign's recount petition was filed Monday with the Texas secretary of state, the state's highest-ranking election official. It asks that the Harris County Clerk's Office hand count the nearly 42,000 ballots cast in the race for state representative in House District 149 in southwest Harris County.

The county's electronic voting system does not make a paper record of each vote as it is cast.

But each machine can generate vote-by-vote printouts of the results for that machine. A recount could be completed by the first week of December, said David Beirne, a spokesman for County Clerk Beverly Kaufman.

Officials with the Vo campaign said they are confident the recount will again show their candidate to be the winner and the next representative from District 149.

"We are confident in the results of the election, and we believe that once the recount occurs, we will still be victorious," said Mustafa Tameez, a consultant with the Vo campaign. "And we hope that once the recount has come and gone that Mr. Heflin does the right thing and concedes and puts this election behind us so we can continue to work for the folks in District 149."

Karen Loper, Vo's campaign manager, said the request for a recount was expected and that Vo was looking forward to going to Austin next week for orientation.

Vo's narrow victory was the first Democratic gain in the House in 32 years and knocked off the veteran Heflin, who, as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was one of the state's most powerful Republican legislators.

Some in Austin had advised Heflin against challenging the election results, and his former colleagues already have moved to claim his third-floor Capitol office and his appropriations committee chair.

House Speaker Tom Craddick appointed state Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, to replace Heflin as appropriations chair on Friday. Craddick spokesman Bob Richter said Monday that Craddick will have no comment on Heflin's decision to seek a recount.